LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s economy has stalled and will grow less than expected this year, despite the Bank of England’s latest injection of 75 billion pounds to try to stimulate a faltering recovery, forecasters said on Monday.

The Ernst & Young ITEM Club, which bases its quarterly report on finance ministry models, downgraded its 2011 GDP forecasts to 0.9 percent from the 1.4 percent it predicted three months ago.

Growth forecasts for 2012 were cut to 1.5 percent from 2.2 percent and unemployment will keep rising until it peaks at 2.7 million people in Spring 2013, the report said.

The central bank’s second round of asset purchases is unlikely to kick start the economy in the face of worries about the euro zone debt crisis and uncertain global demand, according to the ITEM Club’s autumn report.

“It’s worse than we thought,” said Peter Spencer, chief economic advisor to the ITEM Club, sponsored by accounting firm Ernst & Young. “The bright spots in our forecast three months ago — business investment and exports — have dimmed to a flicker as uncertainty around Greece and the stability of the euro zone increases.”

‘CRITICAL JUNCTURE’

Britain’s economy has barely grown over the last year and the coalition government and BoE are under mounting pressure to take urgent steps to try to restore growth.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s economy has stalled and will grow less than expected this year, despite the Bank of England’s latest injection of 75 billion pounds to try to stimulate a faltering recovery, forecasters said on Monday.

The Ernst & Young ITEM Club, which bases its quarterly report on finance ministry models, downgraded its 2011 GDP forecasts to 0.9 percent from the 1.4 percent it predicted three months ago.

Growth forecasts for 2012 were cut to 1.5 percent from 2.2 percent and unemployment will keep rising until it peaks at 2.7 million people in Spring 2013, the report said.

The central bank’s second round of asset purchases is unlikely to kick start the economy in the face of worries about the euro zone debt crisis and uncertain global demand, according to the ITEM Club’s autumn report.

“It’s worse than we thought,” said Peter Spencer, chief economic advisor to the ITEM Club, sponsored by accounting firm Ernst & Young. “The bright spots in our forecast three months ago — business investment and exports — have dimmed to a flicker as uncertainty around Greece and the stability of the euro zone increases.”

‘CRITICAL JUNCTURE’

Britain’s economy has barely grown over the last year and the coalition government and Bank are under mounting pressure to take urgent steps to try to restore growth.

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron’s government faced new embarrassment on Friday after a senior policy adviser was found to have thrown dozens of official papers into public rubbish bins.

Oliver Letwin, a Cabinet Office minister and policy chief in the Conservative Party, was photographed by a newspaper tossing more than 100 documents into bins during morning walks around a park close to parliament.

Cameron’s party, which took power in a coalition in May 2010, is already under pressure over Defence Secretary Liam Fox and his links with a friend who worked as his unofficial adviser.

The Daily Mirror, which photographed Letwin over five days, said he threw away papers discussing Britain’s involvement with the secret movement of suspected militants.

The tabloid newspaper, which supports the Labour Party, carried a front-page picture of Letwin apparently throwing papers into a bin.

Letwin’s spokeswoman sought to play down the Daily Mirror’s claims that some of the documents were “sensitive.”

“Oliver Letwin does some of his parliamentary and constituency correspondence in the park before going to work and sometimes disposes of copies of letters there,” she said. “The documents contain no sensitive information on either constituent or government business.”

SLOUGH, England (Reuters) – The closest most people can get to where millions of BlackBerrys stopped working is a grey office block, over the road from a discount golf superstore and a mobile hamburger van, in the town of Slough, an hour’s drive from London.

Inside the three-storey building, engineers have been racing against the clock to fix an outage that left customers on five continents without email or instant messaging for days. This is the European headquarters of Research in Motion, the Canadian company that makes the smartphones.

Stephen Bates, head of its British arm, made an appearance in the office car park to update the media on Thursday, speaking over the roar of buses, trucks and cars passing by on the main road to Heathrow Airport.

He paused as a passing truck driver wound down his window and shouted “BlackBerrys are rubbish.” An aide stepped in to say: “We’ve had a lot of that this week.”

“Thousands of people are working around the clock,” Bates told Reuters.

But with blinds down to keep out the early autumn sun and visitors barred from the reception area, little could be seen of their efforts in the company’s headquarters.

Tight-lipped staff used a side entrance away from waiting television crews. Security guards patrolled the neatly clipped beech hedges. The few BlackBerry staff who ventured out for lunch declined to speak to the media.

SLOUGH, England (Reuters) – The closest most people can get to where millions of BlackBerrys stopped working is a grey office block, over the road from a discount golf superstore and a mobile hamburger van, in the town of Slough, an hour’s drive from London.

Inside the three-storey building, engineers have been racing against the clock to fix an outage that left customers on five continents without email or instant messaging for days. This is the European headquarters of Research in Motion, the Canadian company that makes the smartphones.

Stephen Bates, head of its British arm, made an appearance in the office car park to update the media on Thursday, speaking over the roar of buses, trucks and cars passing by on the main road to Heathrow Airport.

He paused as a passing truck driver wound down his window and shouted “BlackBerrys are rubbish.” An aide stepped in to say: “We’ve had a lot of that this week.”

“Thousands of people are working around the clock,” Bates told Reuters.

But with blinds down to keep out the early autumn sun and visitors barred from the reception area, little could be seen of their efforts in the company’s headquarters.

Tight-lipped staff used a side entrance away from waiting television crews. Security guards patrolled the neatly clipped beech hedges. The few BlackBerry staff who ventured out for lunch declined to speak to the media.

LONDON, Oct 11 (Reuters) – Britain’s economy risks slipping back into recession after barely growing in the third quarter, a business group said on Tuesday, as data showed that manufacturers are running out of steam.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), which represents companies employing one in six UK workers, said the Bank of England’s latest asset purchase programme may not be enough to avert a double-dip recession.

The business group estimated that the economy grew by between 0.1 percent and 0.3 percent in the third quarter and warned that the downside risks were growing due to the euro zone debt crisis and worries about global demand.

“We can avoid a recession, but this relies on the government making some tough policy choices,” said BCC Director General John Longworth. “The survey shows the real risks facing the economy and the need for the government to act now.”

The BCC said Britain’s Conservative-led coalition government was right to stick to its austerity plan to cut a bloated budget deficit, but it must also take “radical” steps to stimulate growth through business-friendly policies.

Despite record low interest rates of 0.5 percent, Britain’s economy has stagnated for nearly a year. Inflation of nearly 5 percent is squeezing people’s living standards as wages rise slowly and unemployment has started to increase again.

“We’re facing one of the toughest trading conditions this country has seen for decades,” Phil Clarke, head of the country’s biggest retailer Tesco said on Tuesday.

LONDON (Reuters) – Around two-thirds of the most expensive corporate hospitality packages for the 2012 London Olympics have yet to be sold, although organizers said on Wednesday they were confident of finding buyers for the rest despite the gloomy economic outlook.

Prestige Ticketing Ltd, the company with sole corporate hospitality rights inside the Olympic venues, said it had sold 30-40 percent of its allocation, with strong demand for the tennis, diving and equestrian events.

Luxury hospitality deals cost up to 4,500 pounds ($6,933) a head for a day, including top-tier tickets, wine and meals in a three-storey pavilion being built next to the main stadium in east London.

“Whilst the economic climate is challenging, we have to work that bit harder and not rely on the banking and financial sectors which are traditionally very strong in hospitality,” Alan Gilpin, Prestige’s chief operating officer, told a news conference with less than 300 days to go before the Games begin.

Traditional customers in finance and advertising have been joined by companies in sectors like construction, energy and mining, he added. Prestige said the first event where it sold out its allocation was the women’s hockey final.

The company, a joint venture between French catering group Sodexo and British hospitality firm Mike Burton Group, is selling 120,000 tickets for the Olympics and the Paralympics, less than 1 percent of the total. The Games’ organizers have appointed two other companies to sell hospitality deals, Thomas Cook and Jet Set Sports.

Many Britons were left disappointed after failing to secure tickets for the Games. With their high price tag, hospitality deals are the only way to guarantee a place at the most popular events.

LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Around two-thirds of the most expensive corporate hospitality packages for the 2012 London Olympics have yet to be sold, although organisers said on Wednesday they were confident of finding buyers for the rest despite the gloomy economic outlook.

Prestige Ticketing Ltd, the company with sole corporate hospitality rights inside the Olympic venues, said it had sold 30-40 percent of its allocation, with strong demand for the tennis, diving and equestrian events.

Luxury hospitality deals cost up to 4,500 pounds ($6,933) a head for a day, including top-tier tickets, wine and meals in a three-storey pavilion being built next to the main stadium in east London.

“Whilst the economic climate is challenging, we have to work that bit harder and not rely on the banking and financial sectors which are traditionally very strong in hospitality,” Alan Gilpin, Prestige’s chief operating officer, told a news conference with less than 300 days to go before the Games begin.

Traditional customers in finance and advertising have been joined by companies in sectors like construction, energy and mining, he added. Prestige said the first event where it sold out its allocation was the women’s hockey final.

The company, a joint venture between French catering group Sodexo and British hospitality firm Mike Burton Group, is selling 120,000 tickets for the Olympics and the Paralympics, less than 1 percent of the total. The Games’ organisers have appointed two other companies to sell hospitality deals, Thomas Cook and Jet Set Sports.

Many Britons were left disappointed after failing to secure tickets for the Games. With their high price tag, hospitality deals are the only way to guarantee a place at the most popular events.

LONDON (Reuters) – British manufacturing activity unexpectedly grew for the first time in three months in September, although a slide in new export orders highlighted the dangers facing the sluggish recovery, a survey showed on Monday.

The Markit/CIPS manufacturing PMI headline activity index rose to 51.1 last month from an upwardly revised 49.4 in August. This was well above the 48.6 forecast in a Reuters poll, and none of the 31 economists surveyed had expected a reading above the 50 mark that separates growth from contraction.

The output component of the index bounced back with its strongest reading in five months after falling in August for the first time in more than two years.

However, September’s headline growth was below the peaks seen at the start of the year and was largely driven by the fastest depletion of backlogs for two years, Markit said.

The figures are unlikely to do much to ease jitters about the fragile economic recovery or silence calls for the government and Bank of England to do more to stimulate growth at a time of global uncertainty. The central bank announces its October policy decision on Thursday.

“The modest return to growth of UK manufacturing output in September is a positive, but it is hard to escape the fact that the sector’s performance has weakened substantially since the opening quarter’s growth surge,” said Markit economist Rob Dobson.

“These data suggest that the positive contribution of manufacturing to the broader economic recovery is likely to remain modest, at best, through the remainder of the year.”

LONDON (Reuters) – British manufacturing activity unexpectedly grew for the first time in three months in September, although a slide in new export orders highlighted the dangers facing the sluggish recovery, a survey showed on Monday.

The Markit/CIPS manufacturing PMI headline activity index rose to 51.1 last month from an upwardly revised 49.4 in August. This was well above the 48.6 forecast in a Reuters poll, and none of the 31 economists surveyed had expected a reading above the 50 mark that separates growth from contraction.

The output component of the index bounced back with its strongest reading in five months after falling in August for the first time in more than two years.

However, September’s headline growth was below the peaks seen at the start of the year and was largely driven by the fastest depletion of backlogs for two years, Markit said.

The figures are unlikely to do much to ease jitters about the fragile economic recovery or silence calls for the government and Bank of England to do more to stimulate growth at a time of global uncertainty. The central bank announces its October policy decision on Thursday.

“The modest return to growth of UK manufacturing output in September is a positive, but it is hard to escape the fact that the sector’s performance has weakened substantially since the opening quarter’s growth surge,” said Markit economist Rob Dobson.

“These data suggest that the positive contribution of manufacturing to the broader economic recovery is likely to remain modest, at best, through the remainder of the year.”